Secure your personal data online before time runs out

In a globally connected world, where dependency on technology is growing by every millisecond, protecting your identity online can be quite a task. There is a way to measure carbon footprints, there is some kind of a measurement for everything you own and have plans to possess. But, do you know how much data you leave online everyday and how various agencies access to your data in terms of your details, your preferences and aspects that were considered deeply personal in the earlier days?

Let’s first understand what ‘personal’ data means. According to Data Protection Commissioner Personal data broadly means data relating to a living individual who is or can be identified either from the data or from the conjunction with other information that is in or is likely to come into, in the possession of the data controller. As per EU Data protection Directive, personal data shall mean ANY information relating to an individual, to an identified or identifiable natural person.

While at the outset, things seem way too simple; we need to dwell deeper into understanding the impending threats from this situation where YOU can be identified online. The recent case of Purvi Patel, a 30-year-old who was jailed for allegedly killing her foetus, deliberately or otherwise, was handed out a jail term of 20 years in America. What proved costly to her was the fact that she had searched for contraceptives online on her iPad and later exchanged text messages with her friends in which she (allegedly) admitted buying those contraceptives. This turned into an incriminating evidence for the prosecutor representing the government, who pressed for charges against her, stating she had bought the contraceptives online she had searched for on the net, and thus deliberately endangered the life of her 25-week old foetus. The prosecutor also presented a redacted email found in Purvi’s account, which showed that there was a contact between Purvi and the Chinese company from which she bought the contraceptives. Though there was a loophole which could have been just her curiosity to look for those alternatives, without having to actually take them (because no trace of abortion-inducing drugs was found in her body or the body of the foetus), the Indiana court in the US didn’t consider them. The evidence based on the redacted email, her Internet search history and text messages was pressing enough, they felt and sent her to jail.

This is just one example of how much data we are leaving online, so that it can be used against us, when the need arises. There are also agencies, which turn richer by the day, just using the footsteps you leave in the digital world. Your online shopping, banking, social media, and mobile apps are clinching factors that leave behind a lot of YOU online.

Security threats come in various form these days. Keeping a tab on that seems next to impossible, but it is a MUST DO thing today. What can you do to keep yourself from being traced in the digital world?

Minimize your online footprint
First step towards this is to understand who is tracking your browsing habits. Tools such as Disconnect and Lightbeam (Mozilla) can literally show you who is tracing your steps when you visit various websites. At a later stage, the need would be to understand who is tracking your social media updates. Is there something you would like to do about it? The more you work, higher the security! In case you want to hide your identity, go for Tor or a VPN all the time. Sounds tedious, but worth every second!

Take browser security seriously!
Since browsing is the most common activity all we Internet users do, it would be worth taking the browser security a little more seriously than we do now. If you feel the clickstream isn’t helping you by making all the data public, you may want to obscure your clickstream. Again, Tor to rescue! What’s more, Tor is free as well!

Smartphone isn’t smart, after all!
Limit the tracking on your smartphone because this gadget isn’t really your friend. It can reveal a lot more than what the former NSA agent Snowden was able to talk about his country spying on people for whatever reasons. Change the privacy settings and honestly, if possible, don’t browse from your mobile as far as possible.

Cookies are a no-no!
These delicious sounding cookies aren’t so sweet at the end of the day, when it comes to the matters of privacy. Delete cookies from your browser. You know it better, if you are a pro. But, it would surprise a lot of people who are unaware of the kind of information cookies can let out on you! Soon, you will be moving from cookies to fingerprinting, which is much more difficult to keep off. We are sure we will arrive with a solution soon for this one too!

Limit cloud services
One thing Snowden saga should teach us is to understand how seriously we should take cloud services, and avoid them as much as possible. Whatever data is given away, or sought, or stored is potentially a hazard that would be accessed by someone else who may not have noble intentions after all.